29th of May 2016, Louvain-la-Neuve, Ferme
du Biereau, Av du Jardin Botanique, 12am-1.pm
Four award-winning
projects of the European Community-led
Housing Award 2016 will present their initiatives in the framework of the 7th
Habitat Groupé Fair (Salon de l’Habitat Groupé).
Citizens as City-Makers!
Community-led housing is at the core of current debates on sustainable
cities in Europe. There is an increasing interest for community-led approaches in
the housing sector, given that they generate new models of solidarity between
citizens, the elderly, generations and people from diverse backgrounds, and contribute
sustainably to solving the housing crisis. Across Europe, inhabitant groups organise
themselves according to different organisational and legal models: Habitat
Groupé, Housing Cooperatives, Community Land Trusts, Collaborative Housing,
CoHousing, etc… Referred to as ‘community-led housing’. Whatever their name
or legal form, these initiatives contribute to putting the citizens at the core
of the production of our cities and constitute real alternatives to the
prevalent model of top-down and profit-oriented city-making. Today, there is a need
for bridging the gaps between different models and cultural approaches.
The European
Community-led Housing Award
The European Community-led Housing
Award should
be understood as a mechanism enhancing the recognition of the transformative
character of habitat projects led by inhabitant groups. This process seeks to
stimulate experience exchange and knowledge sharing at the project level and to
strengthen the European movement of community-led or collaborative housing that
reinvents the ways of building our cities. The exchange mechanism is organised
in collaboration between urbaMonde, Building and Social Housing Foundation (the
organiser of the World Habitat Awards[1]) and
Habitat&Participation ASBL. The presentation of the award-winning projects
will take place on Sunday, 29th of May between 12 am and 1.30 pm, in
the framework of the 7th Habitat Groupé Fair (Salon de
l’Habitat Groupé). A wide and diverse audience will have the chance to discover
four projects, presented by their representatives from Spain, Switzerland,
Germany and the United Kingdom. Additionally, a series of knowledge sharing
events will be organised between Belgian and European projects during the
weekend in Louvain-la-Neuve and Brussels.
Towards European policies supportive
of community-led housing initiatives?
Beyond
rewarding four exemplary projects, the award seeks to acknowledge the
commitment, diversity and creativity of the whole range of European citizen
movements engaged in the field of community-led housing. Although an increasing
number of local governments, social housing agencies, as well as housing
professionals and academics, is interested in community-led housing initiatives,
which have managed to influence local and national public policies, it is
crucial to enhance their visibility among civil society and public
institutions. There is, in fact, a need to develop supportive public policies
at the European level in order to scale-up community-led housing solutions and
models.
[1] Building and
Social Housing Foundation has been coordinating the World Habitat Awards for
the past 30 years in collaboration with the United Nations. Learn more: https://www.bshf.org/world-habitat-awards/
MehralsWohnen,
Zurich, Switzerland
MehralsWohnen
is a federation of 60 housing cooperatives that planned, financed and managed
the construction of an entire neighbourhood, home to 1,100 residents and 150
jobs in the City of Zurich. The scale (cooperative neighbourhood),
energy-efficient buildings, social diversity and the predominance of common
spaces are but some examples of the innovation at the core of this project.
Granby4Streets
CLT, Liverpool, UK
In the
context of poverty, social exclusion and top-down approaches towards urban
renewal, the inhabitants of Toxteth in Liverpool created the Granby4Streets
Community Land Trust to defend their interests., Granby4Streets CLT has
successfully managed to negotiate with public actors and social investors to
implement participatory urban upgrading and social projects at the benefit of
more than 2,000 residents.
La
Borda, Barcelona, Spain
The Housing
Cooperative “La Borda” originated from an activist movement in “Le Sants”, a
working-class neighbourhood in Barcelona. La Borda seeks to integrate housing
with the social economy and the Care economy, and to encourage new models of
living in community. It constitutes at the same time the first experience of
collective property in the city of Barcelona.
Spreefeld,
Berlin, Germany
The Building and Housing Cooperative “Spreefeld” is
situated in the former ‘no man’s land’ between Eastern and Western Germany.
Founded in 2011 and inhabited since 2014, it is a succesful example of local
resistance to speculative, top-down and large scale area development, and has
managed to provide affordable homes and public and semi-public spaces.
For
more information:
Hub
Europe 2016: https://www.urbamonde.org/en/hub-europe-2016
World Habitat Awards: https://www.bshf.org/world-habitat-awards/
Salon
de l’Habitat Groupé: www.habitat-groupe.be/salon2016/
Social Production of
Habitat Video Summary: https://vimeo.com/142355996
Contacts:
Bea Varnai, coordinator
of the European Hub, urbaMonde-France: bea.varnai@urbamonde.org
Mariangela Veronesi, coordinator
of the World Habitat Awards, BSHF: Mariangela.Veronesi@bshf.org
Pascale
Thys, coordinator of Habitat & Participation ASB: p.thys@habitat-participation.be
